Love's Redemption
by WinterWhirls
Summary: You are no longer a thing without a name, without reality. You are no longer the burden of a rape and you aren't a simple way to punish myself. You are a real person. And you need me in order to survive. I'm your Mother. Serena Benson's thoughts on Olivia
1. Chapter 1

Love's Redemption

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Dick Wolf and NBC. I just borrow them sometimes. As always, anything you recognize isn't mine.

A/N: I wanted to do something a little different than the other things posted on this site, and this little piece came of it. It's a topic not many have covered, and it was kind of hard for me to settle my thoughts and write what I really wanted to say. I think I finally got to where I wanted with this. It has a point, and I hope you can get something out of it. Enjoy.

**May 24****th****, 1978. Serena Benson.**

And once again, I am crouched over the toilet, vomiting up my bile. It is seven in the morning and I have just woken up. My stomach is completely empty. Devoid of anything that can bring me relief. My nose and my throat are burning, and my mouth is filled with an unbelievable acidity. It had started at the beginning of the week.

After slowly getting up, I move to push my hair from my eyes, and I thoroughly brush my teeth and rinse my mouth for at least two minutes.

And I still feel dirty.

But hey, what else is new.

I shuffle slowly into the kitchen, one hand on my sore stomach, the other sweeping the wall, ready for me to lean on in case my legs give out. As if everything that has happened to me these past few weeks is insufficient, I have contracted the stomach flu.

These past few weeks. Five, exactly.

After I had regained consciousness in that ally, I had had the impression that every doctor in the world had teamed up to make me pass test, after test, after test. To think they took me for a fucking laboratory rat. And the police had asked me ten million questions.

Questions that were always embarrassing. Especially on what he had done to me.

"_Whatever happened, Ms. Benson, you must not feel guilty. There was nothing you could do. You don't need to defend yourself. You can tell us everything; we understand…"_ was all the female officer kept repeating. She proved to be very patient, comprehensive, and kind. And me, I wanted to hit her.

She'd interviewed me in front of a big mirror towards which she kept shooting furtive glances whenever I hesitated or didn't want to answer. Did she think I was stupid enough to not recognize a two-way mirror?

Everything makes my head hurt and makes me want to cry. It is _him_. He is always in the foreground of my mind. And he is driving me to insanity.

I stop in the kitchen, and make myself a piece of toast and a cup of tea. Should my stomach hold anything down, toast is relatively safe. I am feeling better. A little.

**May 25****th****, 1978. Serena Benson.**

I finish off my last bit of coffee and glance up at Julia. I am grateful for her presence. We'd been good friends since college. And I am glad that she is here today. Finally I have something to take my mind off things. And I hate being alone. I have too much freedom to think, when I am by myself.

"Serena…are you pregnant?"

My head snaps up and I stare, open mouthed, at her.

"What the hell are you talking about? Of course not…I…" The words die in my mouth, and it is as if freezing water had been splashed down my back. I look at my hands as they fidget in my lap.

"But you could be, right?" Her voice is gentle and soft, and her expression holds general concern, but the anger that swells inside of me is unrepentant. How can she mention such atrocities? Who the hell would even think that!

"No. No…that's impossible. I can't be pregnant."

"Serena, you know he didn't use a…" She clears her throat. "And you've been sick. It's okay, you can tell me. I won't tell anyone, I promise."

In one bound I am off the couch and racing to my room like an arrow shot from a bow, hoping to leave Julia's words far, far behind me.

"Get out," I mutter, and my hands shake uncontrollably as I shut my bedroom door behind me.

**May 30****th****, 1978. Serena Benson.**

_Come on, Serena. Be brave. You're pregnancy test will never work if you are satisfied with clenching it in your hand. Just do it. The result will show up in only one minute. If it's white, you'll be okay, you'll be okay…_

_And if it's blue…_

_Shit, stop doing that. Just do the test. _

I re-read the instruction manual. It seems simple enough. _The indicator is included, just pee on it. That's it, that's all. _

I take a deep breath and do as instructed. It is stupid anyway, I am _not _pregnant.

It's impossible. Not now, not like this.

I put the test on top of the toilet and wash my hands, now there is nothing left to do but wait. Just one, tiny minute.

It is the longest minute of my life. I am sitting on the closed lid of the toilet, and I can't see the test but I close my eyes anyway and count steadily. I stop at fifty-nine, though, incapable of thinking the last number. Much less pronounce it.

I am not pregnant. The vomiting is just the after shock of what happened to me. That' all. Rigid like a solider, I turn around, my eyes still squeezed shut.

I don't even have to pick it up. From where I am standing, I can clearly see the colour.

No. No, no, no. Blue.

What am I going to do? Oh, dear God, what am I going to do?

**July 14****th****, 1978. Serena Benson.**

I am alone. My friends try to help, but they don't understand. It's my fault. It's my fault. Now, I'm paying the consequences. I'm all alone.

God, I never meant to let myself be raped.

**August 3****rd****, 1978. Serena Benson.**

I have a picture of you in my wallet. It's grey and white and blue, and you're just a small but defined shape in the centre. You're all bent up and twisted at weird angles and I know you can't possibly be comfortable in there. You're growing. You're changing. I don't think I like you. And I hate myself.

**September 18****th****, 1978. Serena Benson.**

It would be so easy just to end it all. You are an infuriating inconvenience. I can't do anything without thinking about how it will affect you. I'm always on guard. I'm always cautious. And I don't want to be. I don't want to have to change who I am because of you. I didn't ask for this. I didn't want you. I wish my life was the way it was. I'd take anything. Please.

I know that once you join me, we'll never be happy. I won't be happy, and you most certainly won't enjoy it, either. It'll be a rough ride. I hope you can be strong.

**November 28****th****, 1979. Serena Benson.**

I'm not so alone anymore. You're here, you keep good company, I guess. I know you recognize my voice because you flutter whenever I speak to you. Why does that make me feel warm inside? You kick when I do anything particularly reckless, and you also kick when I lay down to go to sleep at night. It's as if you're shouting "_Don't give up yet, Momma._" Momma. Yeah, that's who I am now. And I've just realized that I have no idea how I'm supposed to take care of you.

Jesus, I'm so scared.

But it's still better than being alone.

**January 26****th****, 1979. Serena Benson.**

Two days late, baby. You planning on coming out anytime soon?

**January 27****th****, 1979. Serena Benson.**

I hold you in my arms and I wait. I wait to feel something. Anything. I wait and wait. Nothing has come. Not pleasure. Not pain. Not joy, nor anguish. Not love, but not hate, either. Nothing.

I stare deep into your brown eyes, brown like small, mysterious orbs, and your gaze meets mine. It's as if you were hoping that I would…that I would recognize you. I can't find any other explanation. But I don't recognize you. You are a stranger. And I feel guilty. I had the same impression when you were in my stomach. And it's still there today. I don't care like a good mother should and it's not even your fault. That's why I feel guilty. I am made of only regret and culpability.

"You should feed her," Suggests the nurse, Mrs. Finley, smiling.

I don't want to take care of it, but that nurse is staring at me. I didn't want her to guess what was going on in my head. A young mother is not supposed to feel anything but love for her child.

"Do you have a bottle?" I ask, in a hesitant voice.

"Not in this hospital, no. Bottles are only to be used if prescribed by a doctor."

I sigh. I don't want to do this. I look down at you, and you're curious gaze is still fixated on me. I wonder why you don't cry. Babies always cry when they are born, right? So why are you so silent? I sigh again, and lower the corner of my white night gown. I am too tired for modesty, and I don't care that the nurse is watching. I raise you to the proper height, and gently guide your chin to my breast. You tug with fast little suckles.

Olivia.

You are no longer a thing without a name, without reality. You are no longer the burden of a rape and you aren't a simple way to punish myself. You are a real person. And you need me in order to survive.

And oh, God, I've never been so afraid in my life. I look at you again and this new truth hits me. Violently. It pierces my heart, before engulfing me whole. Olivia. My Olivia. You are…you are my daughter. Mine.

Olivia Benson. My flesh and blood. Half me, half him. And one hundred percent you. Not a doll, not a symbol, nor an idea, but a real person with a whole new life opening up in front of you.

And entirely my responsibility.

Tears leak onto my cheeks. I smile a little at you, and despite my blurred vision, I swear you smile back. It is only a tiny smile, but a smile nonetheless. This time I look at you because I can't _not _look at you. I watch you feed, your little eyelids closed, your little fist clenched and poised against my skin. I smell your scent, our scent. I feel like you are taking from me much more than milk. With each new breath, I can feel the last nine months float farther and farther away, until they're only a distant memory. But you don't drink for long. A couple minutes, not more. You rest against my chest, eyes closed.

I close my eyes too, because I'm really, really tired. I lean my head back against the scratchy pillows.

Suddenly, you are being taken from my arms.

"What are you doing?" I asked the nurse, panicky, who is lifting you from my embrace.

"I'm putting her in her basin, at the foot of your bed. You've worked hard and need to rest."

"Can't I hold her?"

"The bed is too narrow honey, she might fall."

I glare at the nurse, wondering why she is on the defensive.

"You can hold her after you rest."

And that was that.

I am too tired to fight.

She places you in the basin, and I lie down. Only once she leaves, I get up and lay on my stomach so that my face is right above you. I can't keep my eyes off you. And even when I cried again, I admired you still.

**January 27****th****, 1979. Serena Benson.**

It's the first night of your life. You sleep in the plastic crib and I can't stop watching you.

I can't stop thinking about _him_. He haunts me, Olivia. I don't want to suffer anymore, but I can't stop the pain. But at least I have you, right? How do I feel? I'm not sure. My head is still spinning. It all happened so fast.

It's so strange because up until this morning, I hated you. What were you, but a reminder of everything I've suffered? What were you but another way for God to punish me? Your eyes are brown. Mine are green. Brown, and green. Not the same. My hair is blonde, yours is a dark shade of brown. Blond, and brown. Not the same. When you grow up, you'll probably look like him. I don't know what I'll do, then.

But like I always say, each thing will come, in it's own time.

It's you and me against the world, my darling,

You and me against the whole world.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Hope you guys enjoy, here's part 2. Probably one more after this. :D**

**January 29****th****, 1979. Serena Benson.**

What was life before you? Not the same as now. Never the same as tomorrow, or next week, or next year. But I have you; I'm keeping you, now. What you mean to me, and what I must mean to you, scares me. When I kiss your forehead, I forget everything bad, my darling girl. You bring me peace, and in a sense, a new life. My thoughts become reality and you appease my demons. I cradle you against me, I hold you close. The third day of your life, and I don't really know what to think about you yet.

But.

You're My Olivia.

Mine.

**April 3****rd****, 1979. Serena Benson.**

I had no idea of the great responsibility that I decided to take on when I brought you home for the first time. I made some rash decisions, and now here we are, you are three months old now, and you never, ever stop crying. It doesn't matter what I do. I try to feed you, and you bite me. I try to help you get some sleep, and you just refuse to close your eyes. When I burp you to relieve your stomachaches, you vomit on my clean shirts. I can't work – not that I would anyways- and I can hardly sit for half an hour at a time without interruption.

I know…I know it's not you.

I do care about you, though. All babies are like this.

But the difference is that I didn't ask for it.

**June 19****th****, 1981. Serena Benson. **

Years go by so slowly. I know it's ridiculous to say so, because in every other scenario I've witnessed, mothers are always sad when the years blur by. What kind of horrid person am I, when I'm only upset at how languidly the days pass? There's nothing to do. I have no job, no steady source of income, and a child on my hands. A child that I have no idea what to do with.

You're well into your third year, now, and I worry because weren't the Terrible Two's supposed to stop at age three? You definitely aren't an angel. Sometimes you're so obnoxiously loud that the only way to get you to be quiet is to lock you in your room. I'm proud of myself, now, because we've come to an understanding. At first you didn't get it. When you were in your room, you'd scream and howl and rage and cry and you'd have to stay there for hours. But now as soon as I put you there, you shut right up and God, it's so good to have peace for once. Just so God-forsaken quiet, alone time. Especially on the Bad Days.

**February 27****th****, 1983. Serena Benson.**

The Bad Days are more and more frequent now. Nightmares haunt me in my sleep, and when I startle awake in a cold sweat, thinking I'm back there with _him_, nothing is worse than seeing you staring back at me with wide, dark brown eyes. One night, you venture into my bedroom because you must have heard me tossing.

When I wake up from a particularly vicious nightmare, your small face is right there. Dark hair and dark eyes included. Although you resemble me to some degree, all I can see is him. I see his cold glare in your alert almond shaped eyes, and I see a haunting tuft of dark hair in your bed-headed curls. And it is just too much. Too much, too close. Out of instinct, I try to protect myself. I lash out at you.

I hate myself so much for what I've done. I have never felt so sick as when you fall back, landing on your bottom, holding a hand to your cheek. I have never hated myself more than when your chocolate eyes fill with tears and you stare at me with such hurt, such betrayal in your eyes. You look at me, and you don't understand why, and I could never, ever explain it to you. When I get up and came towards you, you start to scoot away, toward the door, a frown on your pretty face. But I catch you, I lift you easily up off the floor and I hold you so, so tight. I smooth my hand over your hair and kiss your forehead. You sniffle into my neck. You don't understand.

That night, as we lay in bed together, I stay awake. You are curled in towards me; your head rests under my chin, your small hand holds a bunch of my shirt tightly. You have your legs tangled like a web with mine, under the covers. I gently rub your back in a soothing motion, repeatedly and rhythmically so you don't wake up. I murmur how much I love you and how sorry I am over, and over, and over.

In the morning, when you wake up, there is an evident bruise on your face. You tell me it's okay, that it doesn't really hurt, but it's all I can do when I run to the bathroom and vomit.

**March 9****th****, 1983. Serena Benson.**

Now, there aren't any Good Days left. As you grow, as your face changes, you look less and less like me. I only caught a glimpse of my attacker, but when I look at you it's enough to send chills down my spine. You're beautiful, really a gorgeous girl, but my adoration is soured by the knowledge that you are beautiful because of _him_. With his dark eyes, his dark complexion, I know that I played a small role in the defining of your features. And he's all I can see; he's everywhere I look, now.

Alcohol helps. The bottle has become my newest companion. It's my best friend, my saviour. Because now that I come with baggage, men aren't really interested. And now that I devote all my time to you, there isn't time to spend with my girlfriends anymore. See the inconveniences you've caused? See how much I've sacrificed for you? But the alcohol helps me loosen up. Lately I've been wound so tight that the smallest thing can set me off. Like last week, you earned yourself a spank because you coloured on my 'customer's copy' of a receipt from the bodega down the street. I didn't really need it, but it was mine, and you scribbled all over it. You walked up to me, to where I was sitting on the couch doing the bills, and asked if I liked your dragon. I grabbed it from your hand and told you that No, I didn't like it, and that You drew on Mommy's paper, Olivia! You were sad and said you were sorry and it would never happen again. But I know it will. It always happens again, Olivia. We're always making mistakes and on Bad Days, the hole we're in is so deep that I feel like we're never getting out. I let you out of your room two hours later. You'd gone and fallen asleep on me, though. All that because you coloured a dragon. I pour more Vodka because I'm already a terrible mother anyway. We'll have more fun together when I'm feeling carefree and light, and when it's so blurry I can't see your face.

But you're still my daughter. I still love you.

You're mine.

Mine.

**July 12****th****, 1985. Serena Benson.**

I still stand at the door after spending five minutes trying to get you to open it. It is Tuesday; Tuesday is when I go for a drink with Candice. It was just supposed to be a couple…

"Momma? Is that you?" You ask me when I knock, just like I told you to.

"Yes, Livvy. Open the door." At least, that's what I mean to say. What comes out sounds more like a bunch of slurred vowels because my tongue feels so heavy and my brain is confused and slow.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. It's okay. Open the damned door."

"Are you going to sleep?"

"I don't fucking know, alright? Open up."

"Don't be mad, Momma."

And then you open the door for me, good girl. The hall walls are slanted, and they keep meeting my face as I lean up against them for support. I search for you, reach out to touch you, to know that you're still here, but I can't find you.

"Olivia?" I slur you name ungracefully, knocking over several items as I make my way to your room. "Where are you?"

There isn't an answer. You know you scare me when you do this, and yet, you do it anyway. You run and you hide. I don't understand why you're so scared of me. I haven't done anything but help you over the years. And you know I'm fucking terrified of you leaving me. You're all I have. You're all I'll ever have. Without you, I am nothing. And yet you hide and you make me feel all alone in this world. Sometimes, you just make me so angry.

"Olivia! Come here!"

**September 20****th****, 1987. Serena Benson.**

I wait for you by the bus lane. Normally, you take the bus home, but today I've got a special surprise for you. The sky is so, so blue, and the voices of happy children float through my ears.

"Olivia!" I call, as I see you walking all by yourself to the bus lanes. I wave to you and smile, but your face responds in a frown. You are so difficult, Olivia. And here I wanted to make you happy, honey.

I know you don't have many friends. That's mostly my fault. Ever since you were old enough to understand what I was saying, I told you not to let anyone close to your heart. You'll only end up getting hurt, that much is so clear. Open yourself to someone, and you're only going to get backstabbed. Hold your own, my darling. You're different from the other kids, too, and sometimes I get calls from the teachers saying that you hit someone at school that day. Or that you didn't have lunch money, again. Or that you burst out crying in the middle of Circle Time. Or that you mouthed off to the crossing guard in words that only adults should use. Basically, they remind me of what a shit job I've done at raising you. I wish I were better to you. But I can't control myself and I just get so upset. I try so hard not to hurt you, not to hate you, baby. I became a mother very, very young and you have got to be the most difficult kid on the planet. But if we both stay strong, Olivia, we'll make it. You'll see.

You start to walk towards me, dragging your backpack behind you, and I feel a surge of anger because that backpack was expensive. When you reach me, you stop about two feet away and thoroughly inspect me. I don't know what you're looking for, but you assess my stance, my stability, and my eyes. Your shoulders visible relax when I don't do anything out of the ordinary. I feel frustration bubble in my throat when I see that you've managed to stain your shirt again, but I swallow it. I can always fix it later. Today is a Good Day.

"We're going for a surprise, Livvy! You ready?"

You eye me sceptically, and I wonder where the little girl who loved me so much went.

I close the gap between us, and close my arms tightly around you. I bury my face in your hair and notice that you'll have to have a bath tonight. I kiss your forehead, your nose, and your cheek, before enveloping you in my tight embrace again.

"Hmmmm. I love you, Livvy."

You shake your head no. You cringe and pull away, looking around surreptitiously, making sure no one saw.

A/N: It would make my day if you'd review! Thanks so much for reading.


End file.
